''Chispita'' (English title: ''Little Spark'') is a Mexican

telenovela A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar drama genres around the world include '' teleserye'' ...

produced by

Valentín Pimstein Valentín Pimstein Weiner (August 9, 1925 – June 27, 2017) was a Chilean producer of telenovelas. Biography Pimstein was the seventh child of nine in a Belarusian Jewish family (from Minsk), which owns a glass shop in Barrio Brasil in Santia ...

for

Televisa Grupo Televisa is a Mexican multimedia mass media company. A major Latin American mass media corporation, it often presents itself as the largest producer of Spanish-language content. In April 2021, Televisa and Univision Communications announce ...

in 1982. It's an original story by Abel Santa Cruz, the telenovela is a remake of the 1979 Argentinean telenovela ''Andrea Celeste''. Lucero starred as child protagonist, Angélica Aragón and Enrique Lizalde starred as adult protagonists, Usi Velasco starred as co-protagonist, Alma Delfina and Leonardo Daniel starred as young co-protagonists, while Renata Flores starred as main antagonist.

Plot

María Luisa and her husband had a terrible car accident, her husband dies and she lost her memory completely and she is not able to remember anything at all. Because of this incident, María Luisa forgot that she had a daughter, Isabel, who became an orphan and was therefore taken to the orphanage of Father Eugenio, where Isabel begins to live on and grow. When Isabel is 10 years old, she was adopted by Don Alejandro, a respectable man, widower and with 2 children, Juan Carlos y Lilí. When Isabel is taken home, she meets Gloria, the maid, who becomes her friend, and so does Juan Carlos, but not Lilí or Miss Irene, Lili's tutor. Together, Miss Irene and Lily try to make life impossible for Isabel. Then, a woman named Bertha appears, who turns out to be María Luisa's sister, and she contacts Isabel and encourages her to look for her mother due to her strange disappearance. Meanwhile, María Luisa decides to name herself Lucía, due to her lack of memory, and she gets a job in the orphanage directed by Father Eugenio. When Isabel meets Lucía, they befriend each other, without knowing the familiar ties.

Cast

Main

* Enrique Lizalde as Alejandro de la Mora * Angélica Aragón as Lucía * Gastón Tuset as Father Eugenio * Alma Delfina as Gloria * Leonardo Daniel as Juan Carlos de la Mora *

Elsa Cárdenas Elsa Cárdenas Rentería (born 3 August 1932) is a Mexican actress. Since 1954 she has appeared in more than 100 films and television shows. She starred in the film ''Happiness'', which was entered into the 7th Berlin International Film Festival. ...

as Hermana Socorro * Manuel López Ochoa as José *

Aurora Clavel Aurora Clavel (born August 14, 1936) is a Mexican film and television actress who is noted for her roles in the movies '' Tarahumara'' (1965) and ''Once Upon a Scoundrel'' (1973), as well as in numerous telenovelas. For example, she played Mama ...

as Flora * Renata Flores as Irene * Inés Morales as Pilar * Samuel Molina as Rogelio * Josefina Escobedo as Directora * Roxana Chávez as Olga * Beatriz Moreno as Lola * Rogelio Guerra as Esteban * Usi Velasco as Lili * Lucero as Isabel / Chispita

Recurring

* Alberto Mayagoitia as Ángel Guardián * Hilda Aguirre as Tía Beatriz

Reception and music

Due to its international success, it was decided to make a special album by

Timbiriche ''Timbiriche'' (also known for a brief time as ''La Banda Timbiriche'') is a Mexican pop music group. The group started as a children's group in 1981 and managed to evolve successfully into adulthood. Timbiriche is considered one of the most ic ...

that included the main theme. However, Lucerito did not sing the theme, but in a special performance by Timbiriche and Lucerito, they sing it together. The

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrac ...

was recorded in Spanish and Portuguese languages. In

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, this telenovela has been broadcast 8 times and Chispita dolls has been sold. Chispita's

opening credits In a motion picture, television program or video game, the opening credits or opening titles are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen ...

is almost a copy of another

: ''Pai Herói'' (Lit. ''Father Hero'') also had its

episode An episode is a narrative unit within a larger dramatic work or documentary production, such as a series intended for radio, television or streaming consumption. The noun ''episode'' is derived from the Greek term ''epeisodion'' (), meaning th ...

s beginning with a

jigsaw puzzle A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of often irregularly shaped interlocking and mosaiced pieces, each of which typically has a portion of a picture. When assembled, the puzzle pieces produce a complete picture. In t ...

being assembled, of which the

pictures An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimension ...

was a

child A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person young ...

in a

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate bot ...

, beyond others resemblances. ''Pai Herói'' is a Brazilian

produced in 1979 by

Rede Globo TV Globo (, "Globe TV", or simply Globo), formerly known as Rede Globo, is a Brazilian free-to-air television network, launched by media proprietor Roberto Marinho on 26 April 1965. It is owned by media conglomerate Grupo Globo. The TV stati ...

, and written by Janete Clair. It was a great success in

. Brazilian watchers noted that

fact A fact is a datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance, which, if accepted as true and proven true, allows a logical conclusion to be reached on a true–false evaluation. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scie ...

in 1984, when

SBT sbt is an open-source build tool for Scala and Java projects, similar to Apache's Maven and Gradle. Its main features are: *Native support for compiling Scala code and integrating with many Scala test frameworks *Continuous compilation, te ...

had exhibited ''Chispita'' in the country. The jigsaw intro has the curious point that it was never completed specially in a specific part of the board, but in the progress of the story, new pieces were added and in the last episodes a shaded form appears as a woman walking with Chispita. After the revelation of Chispita's mother identity the shade changed to a full color image of Chispita's mother.

Awards

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chispita (Telenovela) 1982 telenovelas Mexican telenovelas 1982 Mexican television series debuts 1983 Mexican television series endings Television shows set in Mexico Children's telenovelas Televisa telenovelas Mexican television series based on Argentine television series Spanish-language telenovelas Television series about orphans